Galactic Vigilantes
by Doctor Life MD
Summary: The Unified Earth Government encountered diplomats of the Galactic Republic. When a member of the Galactic Senate, they will seek to end all conflicts directed against peace-loving races and governments through diplomacy, but when conflict becomes inevitability and corruption starts forcing them down will come time for heroes to rise and fall like before. Rated M for 18 content.


**Yup, here it is. My newest, latest, however you wanna call it, project. A Halo and Star Wars crossover. Now, just for your information, revelations will come later. For now, dive into the crossover. This means Reclaimers is stopped for a long time or could be 'completed' permanently.**

* * *

 **Reach, 2552, August 25th, Eposz, New Alexandria.  
** "Brace!" A loud shout echoed throughout the penthouse floor of a massive hotel where Marine forces were holed up and desperately trying to wait for a drop ship squadron to arrive and extract them before Covenant warships got right over them and emitted their glassing arrays. A whole company-sized unit with a lot of wounded men and women screaming for a Navy Corpsman to help them ease the pain.

"Cover! Find some cover!" Another Marine shouted before a plasma grenade detonated next to him, blowing his leg clean off. He screamed in agony as he fell to the ground.

"Lieutenant, plug that hole! We've got split-chins breaking through!" A Marine Captain pointed at his Lieutenant and then at the elevator on the far side of the penthouse floor. The Lieutenant, who was a member of Marine Force Recon and wore standard M52B in green colors, plus a CH252 helmet with black goggles, at that very moment, got into a fist fight with a Sangheili Major.

"Come here, freak." The Lieutenant jumped back and taunted the Sangheili. The latter rushed at the Human. The Lieutenant tricked the alien attacker and forced him to fall by putting his foot in front of him. When the alien officer was down, the Force Recon Marine pulled out his combat knife and stabbed it straight through the alien's skull. The result was an instant kill. After he scored a close combat kill, he pulled his knife out of the Sangheili, sheathed it and turned towards the remains of his platoon.

"Marines, the jackasses are breaching through the elevator. Break their will and teach them to never use fast transportation when dealing with us!" The Lieutenant looked towards the elevator and saw a team of Covenant jump out of it, armed to the teeth and with a Grunt carrying a Fuel Rod Gun.

"On it, Lieutenant Sandman!" One of the Marines responded and turned himself around, primed his MA5B and fired at the aliens, targeting the one with the anti-tank gun first. Before his 60 round clip was emptied, the alien team fired a salvo of needles at him, piercing his Titanium-A armor and disabling him. The rest of his squad ran up to him, secured the area and attempted to treat his wounds with whatever biofoam was left.

Second Lieutenant John Sandman was a man fresh out of Officer Candidate School of the Marine Corps on Mars, he had served the Corps for five years already, from the day he turned 17, but Reach was the greatest test of his mettle. Many soldiers deserted, thinking it's an impossible fight, many lost their focus and got themselves and their comrades killed. Reach was the very definition of hell in its infancy.

"Sandman! Destroy that elevator and push towards the landing platform! We'll handle any Covenant coming up via the stairs, you worry about blasting them away from our darn platform or we're gonna get flanked!" The Marine Captain, a man in his forties, shouted with his commanding voice. He was about to issue another order, but a Jackal sniper managed to put a hole in the Captain's head from a nearby skyscraper using a Covenant Carbine.

"Captain!" A Marine screamed when the Captain's lifeless body fell on top of him.

"Captain, get up. Captain Zhukovsky!"

The Captain of Russian descent had been killed by a sniper with good aim. The senior officer had been hiding behind a wall which was shot straight through by the Carbine. Alexander Sergeevich Zhukovsky had died, his Marines were left without an officer, but there was one who took it upon himself to lead the brave Humans out safely.

"All units within range of this transmission, Captain Alexander Zhukovsky is dead. I'm Lieutenant John Sandman and I'm taking command of Dog Company. Any drop ship squadron within range, we require immediate exfil to the nearest spaceport." After the message was sent a moment of radio silence followed, but the Lieutenant was intent on breaking through to any allied Air Force units.

"Anyone, please respond. Over half of our company is heavily injured and the Covenant keep on attacking our position."

His message eventually landed in a nearby drop ship squadron's receiver. They tracked his position and flew over, but, unfortunately, they had room only for the wounded. Upon their arrival, and the destruction of several Covenant Phantom drop ships, they landed, loaded in the wounded and took off. They did leave a message and long cables for the surviving Marines.

"Pilot what the hell are we meant to do with cables?" One of the Marines asked over comms.

"Rappel down to street level. There's a retreating convoy there, you can catch a ride with them. Our Falcon escort will give you some cover." The pilot took his Pelican out of the way and kicked in its afterburners, flying away instantly along with the other three drop ships loaded full with the wounded.

"I hate rappelling." The Marine complained while looking at his officer - Lieutenant Sandman.

Sandman proceeded to issue the order of a rappel. Marine by Marine, they climbed down from the hotel that was easily over half a kilometer tall. Thirty five Marines from Dog Company, Fifth Battalion, Thirty Seventh Regiment, Fifty Sixth Division had survived a massacre across New Alexandria's skyscrapers. Most of their division was utterly annihilated and they were just one small band of survivors that got scattered.

Upon reaching ground level, Epsilon Eridani, Reach's parent star, was nowhere to be seen. It's warm rays were blocked out by towering skyscrapers that began crumbling one by one. There were still Marine forces scattered throughout the city, but they never managed to reach the final convoy out of the city.

"All call signs, this is Brigadier General Briggs. This is the final reminder that you must rally up at checkpoints before we pick you up in the final convoy of this hell hole and abandon the planet. We're approaching checkpoint X-Ray, and after that we'll reach Zulu. If you're not in any of these checkpoints then you can consider yourselves abandoned." The General sat back down on his personal Warthog's seat and cursed. Once. Then twice. And three times before reaching X-Ray where Lieutenant Sandman was waiting for the convoy to arrive. The General's Warthog was the first to arrive and stop right next to the Lieutenant.

"Marine, what's your rank and unit." The General stepped out of his jeep and approached the Marine officer who saluted instantly upon seeing him.

"Sir, Second Lieutenant John Sandman, Dog Company, Thirty Seventh Regiment, Fifty Sixth Division. We're all that's left of the division, sir!" The young officer properly introduced himself.

"Where's your Captain?" The General saluted back, indicating that the Marine can now stand at ease.

"Dead, sir. As I said earlier, we're all that's left of our unit and division, sir."

"Alright Marines, double time it into the jeeps. Covenant cruisers are almost on us and there's only one FTL capable starship left nearby!" The senior officer sat back into his jeep after giving his authorization for the survivors of Dog Company to load into vehicles. Immediately after, the convoy proceeded on their route. When they reached the final checkpoint, they found that the survivors there were massacred in a final stand. They continued onwards to the spaceport.

The convoy contained roughly three hundred and seventy loaded in various vehicles. When they arrived at the spaceport, they were greeted by a squad of Army Infantrymen, manning ground-to-space defenses in the form of Mark 2488 Mass Drivers that were protecting the liner from an inbound Covenant CCS-class battlecruiser.

"Everyone, load inside the liner!" The General jumped off of his Warthog, pulled out his M6G just in case any Covenant footsoldiers reach them.

Sandman's Dog Company manned the inner perimeter defenses, covering the other three hundred Marines and civilians as they loaded inside the ship. Not a minute later, the Covenant appeared, but they were greeted by a hail of lead from Dog Company.

Screams and gunfire filled the atmosphere, an atmosphere that already reeked of death and destruction. The continued resistance of brave UNSC Marines prevented the approach of Covenant soldiers for twenty minutes until they were forced to start conserving ammunition. They were running low, almost down to the last magazines, almost forced to switch to combat knives or fisticuffs. Luckily, they were ordered to fall back and load into the starship as the remnant had already loaded inside and the starship was ready to take off.

"Dog, retreat in an orderly fashion! Go, go, go!" Lieutenant Sandman reloaded his trusty M392 Designated Marksman Rifle with a fresh mag with 15 rounds. He fired the full metal jacket armor piercing rounds into the enemy with great skill before he ran out.

"I'm out!" He exclaimed. Afterwards, the Lieutenant made his way towards the liner and got inside of it just before it took off and made its way towards a safer area where it could fly up into orbit and make a random slip away from Reach.

"All passengers, please hold on tight. We've got one bogey on our six and we'll attempt to outmaneuver it." Announced the pilot if the liner. His co-pilot and their AI were calculating a slipspace jump in accordance to the Cole Protocol, but random, but safe jumps needed a lot of time to calculate.

The Covenant corvette behind them opened fire with its point defense arrays, so hoping to melt away the Human liner. The first salvo was a near miss, but the outer plating had suffered a massive temperature increase. Liners were armored with non-military grade anti-radiation plating, strong enough to endure some heat and radiation, but weaponized plasma could deal with it even without a direct hit.

The pilot of the starship activated the rear camera systems for a live feed and to increase his chances of dodging pulse beams.

"Venera, prep the ship for an immediate course correction, fifty six degrees starboard and eighty degrees up." The pilot commanded. He noticed the Covenant ship's plasma array charging up for a torpedo shot. When it fired, the captain of the vessel issued his order.

"Correct course now!"

"Adjusting." The AI directed the thrust of the ship in the specified trajectory. Rapid turning granted the ship a few seconds of valuable time to finalize slipspace jump calculations.

In a moment's notice, the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine spun up and punched open a hole in space and time, allowing the human ship to escape into the cold and irradiated blackness of slipspace.

"Course: former colony world known as Harvest." Venera reported, the pilots both let out a sigh, they were exhausted from this attack, but their passengers were safe and they were proud of that. Well over three hundred Marines and some civilians were given the chance to fight on once more.

* * *

 **Thirteen days later.  
** Days later, they were nearing the slipspace exit point. Most of the passengers were in cryostasis by this point, but the ranking officers had to be wakened up.

Moments later, the ship emerged into real space over the devastated planet known as Harvest. The devastation started here, twenty seven bloody years ago, twenty billion humans had died since then. But memories of the fallen were the least of their worries - the Covenant corvette had pursued them.

"General! We've got bogeys dead ahead, multiple starfighters and a corvette. They're aiming to board us!"

The General acknowledged this report and decided to wake up Dog Company along with Lieutenant Sandman. Thus far, they were the most capable in close combat because they survived the devastation of their entire division inside close quarters.

Slowly, the surviving Marines were being woken up and brought out of cryotubes. The senior officer informed them of their situation and gave them whatever shotguns and knives that could be scavenged from the others. Ammo was scarce, but they had to hold out for another slipspace jump.

"General, our slipspace drive is knocked out!" Announced the pilot right after a Seraph fired a salvo on their engines, effectively immobilizing them.

"Damn, this complicates things. Dog, you'll have to hold them off and, when that's done, board their ship and requisition it for our use. I'll wake up the other platoons to lend you a hand, but for now you have to deal with those ugly bastards raiding us."

"Yes, sir!" The Marines saluted, loaded their guns and ran towards the two only airlocks near the cockpit. The Lieutenant pumped his M45E shotgun and aimed down its sights as he steeled himself for the coming battle. A fellow Marine tapped on his shoulder plates.

"Wanna bet to who kills more?" It was Staff Sergeant Jeromy Scott Storm who hoped to score a few dozen credits.

"You're on, Sarge."

The Marines were checking their gear, helping each other to make sure their Titanium armor was strapped in place. Others were checking the amount of ammo they have left and were terrified to find that they have less than twenty shells each. Regardless, they were determined to fight.

"As they say, 'the deadliest weapon isn't a bomb or a rifle, it's a soldier and his will to fight," am I right?" Sandman tried to give a slight motivation boost for his brave comrades and received a "Hoorah!" in return.

But their motivational hour had come to an end when the corvette launched two boarding craft that were directed at the two airlocks near the cockpit. The General locked himself inside the cockpit with the two pilots, to keep them safe and make sure the pilots fix the slipspace drive from there, and so that he could protect them. Meanwhile, a few awakened Marines were already waking up the ones that were still in cryostasis, to try and give Sandman's company some backup.

"Here they come!" Sandman announced right after one of the two boarding craft attached itself to the ship's starboard airlock, thus rocking the liner a bit. Soon after, the Covenant began cutting open the doors and, like the hell-bent genocidal maniacs that they are, break inside and hope to kill everyone.

"They're in! They're in!" Shouted one of the Marines just before firing an 8 gauge shell into a Grunt.

"Open fire! Suppress them all!" Sandman quickly fired his shotgun, racking its pump every time he saw something peek out of a corner.

The Marines were shouting, screaming at the top of their lungs with anger and trying to drive fear into the Covenant. Some were calmly emptying their shotguns into the aliens, others were screaming and ramming themselves into them when they had to reload. The mass of a typical Marine in armor exceeded a hundred kilograms and that weight was enough to knock down even Sangheili veterans.

"Eat lead you scumbags!" Lieutenant Sandman yelled, noticed that he was out of ammunition and, upon noticing an Elite Field Marshal, pulled out his M6G and ran towards it. He emptied the clip into this high value target and ran right into him, forcing him to ram into a nearby wall.

 _"This is suicide, attacking a Field Marshal. I must be more responsive than him if I want to take him down."_ Sandman thought to himself as he engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a foe that was superior than him. Noticing that his salvo of 12.7mm magnum rounds had taken down its shield, John hoped to quickly take him out of line by kicking right into his knee and then giving a hard punch to the alien's face with his armored fist, but he never managed to daze him. His kick did severely damage the Elite's skeletal structure in his leg.

John earned a menacing growl from this alien officer and, before he could line up a neural override punch, John was slammed away by the Elite. The slam sent him flying back to his Marines and even further. When John got back up, he noticed the Elite was looking really pissed off and rushing right at him. He pulled out his combat knife and hoped to stab it into his eye. When the Elite got close, he attempted to stab it, but the alien's quicker reflexes and superior speed allowed him to evade the stab. He reached out for John and grabbed him by his neck in an attempt to choke him, however, when he reached for the Marine officer, he earned a hard kick in his abdomen, forcing him to let the Marine go. The Elite growled again.

"You've no chance, Human filth!"

"This filthy Human does not know of the word 'surrender'. Not only will I dishonor my Corps, I will dishonor the Human race."

"You know nothing of honor! Prepare to meet your fate." The Elite energized his energy daggers and began stepping closer. John, on the other hand, hoped to dodge his strikes and roll around him to reach a shotgun, but, when the alien got in range he suddenly collapsed on the floor. When John observed him he noticed many, massive bullet holes.

"You're welcome, sir." Said Sergeant Storm after racking the pump of the shotgun and loading fresh shells in.

"I would've neutralized him, not killed him!" Sandman really had hoped to take an HVT as a hostage to squeeze intelligence out of. Little did anyone realize that, upon a death of this Field Marshal, the corvette would power up its plasma torpedoes and move closer to the liner.

John ran up to a nearby window and saw the corvette moving up to them.

"They're not gonna dock, they're gonna take us out. Wipe the floor with us." The General informed through comms. "The drive is still off."

"We're fucked." John whispered to himself, he lost all hope of ever seeing Earth again.

However, to everyone's surprise, a ship the size of a Sahara-class prowler popped up out of nowhere right next to the liner. The corvette, however, fired a huge salvo right after the unknown ship popped up and that ship absorbed the impact with some effort.

"Deus Ex Machina, what the hell is that?" One of the Marines said in pure shock and amazement.

"Unknown ships, identify yourselves!" A signal arrived from the unknown ship. It was clearly English, but it was sent on a few dozen other languages as well. The General immediately responded in high hopes that it could mean help for them.

"This is Brigadier General Abraham Briggs of the United Nations Space Command Marine Corps. Our liner has been the target of aggression by the purple corvette right in front of us. They have pursued our ship from the destruction of one of our colonies and we are in dire need of naval assistance."

The answer took its time to be formed, but after two minutes it was finally sent, this time only in English.

"General Briggs, this is a consular cruiser. We can offer limited assistance and our own long-range communications are offline. We cannot hope to destroy a warship on our own."

"Consular cruiser? For a ship like that, you absorbed a salvo of its plasma torpedoes far too easily!"

"Alright, we'll do what we can, but after that you have a lot of explaining to do as to what are you doing in the Unexplored Regions."

The General and the two pilots around him looked at each other in curiosity. This is explored UEG space, why would they think it's unexplored was something they didn't understand. That, and the size and assumed classification of the ship gave rise to more questions than answers. When they noticed this consular cruiser fire back with what appeared to be energy bolts and completely destroy the corvette, they were amazed.

Moments later, the consular cruiser flew closer to the Human liner and smashed away one boarding craft that had attached itself in a maneuver to attach its own docking tube to the ship's airlock. The Marines, and especially Sandman, who had entered a state of higher focus, after murdering waves of attacking aliens, weren't about to let their guard down. When the airlock of this consular vessel opened, two Human males covered in robes entered the ship.

''You may stand down, we wish you no harm.'' One of the two Humans in robes waved his hand. His movement let his robe open up a bit more, revealing what appeared to be a set of armor and a piece of equipment that fits in two hands like a hilt of a sword. And it obviously had a button.

''Marines, check them for weapons.'' Sandman ordered Storm and another Marine check the two unidentified Humans for anything that may cause harm to the ship or its passengers. The Marines thoroughly checked every part, but the only pieces of equipment they could find were those hilt-like constructs. They gave both to Lieutenant Sandman who observed both of them, noticing two ''holes'' in one end for each. After he finished analyzing them, visually, he asked the two Humans what were they.

''What are these things? Are they hilts stolen off of swords?''

''Technically, they are swords. Sabers. Haven't you seen one before? Many of the galaxy's inhabitants know how they look like. Give it to me and I'll show it to you.'' The older Human stretched out his hand, but Sandman didn't trust him enough.

''I'm not risking that.'' He attached one of these 'hilts' on his best, while he took the other, aimed the 'opening' away from him or his Marines and pressed a button. An unfamiliar sound echoed and the hilt was now projecting a green sword made of what appeared to be energy.

The two Humans exchanged looks towards each other, and whispered amongst themselves.

 _''They act like they're primitives. They haven't ever seen a lightsaber, Master.''_

''Yes, well, they've been living inside the Unexplored Regions apparently, but even if they had lived here, surely they should've heard of lightsabers. Something's amiss, my young Padawan.''

The Lieutenant, after observing the sword from every angle, deactivated it by pressing the same button and attached it to his belt.

''For the time being, I'll be keeping them with me. We want insurance that you won't try to wipe us out.''

''If you say so, Mister…?'' The elderly Human wanted to get to know the Lieutenant by his name.

''Second Lieutenant John Sandman, United Nations Space Command Marine Corps.'' The Lieutenant extended his hand for a shake, marking this as a formal meeting now.

''I'm Jedi Master Sehn and this is my Padawan, Arno.'' Both of these mysterious 'Jedi' figures bowed before the Marines instead of shaking the Lieutenant's hand.

The Lieutenant pulled his hand back to him and then ordered his Marines to lower their weapons. He gestured for the two Jedi to walk alongside him while ordered his Marines to stay and guard the airlock. Sandman led these two unknowns to the cryochambers where well over 300 people were located in.

''These are the passengers we were carrying. At least half are civilians, the rest are military. We were fleeing from the destruction of our colony.''

The Jedi looked at each other and held a conversation with themselves. They were discussing the reasons for the aggression against this branch of humans and many theories rose up. What caught their eye the most was the radical difference in ship architecture between their ship and the UNSC's starships. That, and armor design, civilian clothing, weapon design and basically everything else. It was like this group of humans had been separated from the rest of the humans, or evolved on parallel on a different world which would technically be impossible.

The Lieutenant then proceeded to lead them to a holographic entertainment room. The two Jedi stopped him there and asked what is going on, why were they on the run, what war are they fighting and so on. The Lieutenant promised to explain everything. He activated the holographic room and inserted a chip into the main computer. A chip that contained a record of the Human-Covenant War, all the holographic images needed to explain the situation. The first image generated was Harvest and dozens of ships from the UNSC Navy and the Covenant Navy.

''We're located in the Epsilon Indi system, over the former colony world of Harvest. This is where our twenty seven year long war started. For five years, forces of the UNSC and Covenant battled over dominance for this planet, but that didn't prevent the Covenant from reaching possibilities of ending our existence on other planets. The war spread like a wildfire and there was nothing we could do to stop it. World after world fell to their onslaught. Eventually they began wiping out our Inner colonies. Many fell, some are left undiscovered, but we have been running from the annihilation of Reach - our fortress world that we thought was untouchable. Without Reach, our enemy - The Covenant Empire - is able to give us a finishing blow. More than twenty billion humans remain on Earth, our home world, but when they hit us... Well, let's just say all of us will die." The Lieutenant explained their situation in hopes that these Jedi could help them.

"And what makes you think you can trust us?" The Jedi Padawan asked a valid question.

"The fact that we're talking like normal human beings." Sandman replied. The Padawan nodded and bowed in respect.

"We could offer some help if you agree to form diplomatic relations with the Galactic Senate." The Jedi Master suggested, but earned a shake from the Lieutenant's head.

"I'm not any high ranking officer with the power to make choices such as these."

"Perhaps you can set us up in contact once you are able to travel faster than light?"

"It's possible, but we'll have to wait a while."

Sandman pulled out the datachip and left the room with the intent of heading to the cockpit where the General was at, but when he arrived he noticed that his superior was dead. Shot by plasma, along with the ship's pilot. Fortunately, the copilot was quite knowledgeable in terms of repairing the fusion cores of liners.

The Lieutenant sighed and dragged out the two dead bodies, away from the cockpit. He ordered the rest of his Marines to drag out the Covenant boarders and drag them inside the storage bay. They had to make sure they didn't just lie in front of everyone. The Jedi Master remembered that his own ship's FTL drive was fully functional.

"We can use our ship to get back home."

"Well, we don't have the sane star maps so we can't actually calculate a jump based on luck." The Lieutenant said while walking inside the cockpit and pulling out the ship's AI's data crystal and held it tightly into his hand.

"But I can check it. Please lead me to your bridge." Sandman added and the Master gladly accompanied him towards their bridge on their ship where they met a few bridge officers. One of then immediately straightened out and was ready to introduce himself.

"Captain Wullf Yularen, Galactic Republic Navy."

Sandman smiled for a bit, extended his hand for a handshake and introduced himself without hesitation.

"Second Lieutenant John Sandman, United Nations Space Command Marine Corps."

Wullf and John shook hands as they became acquainted. John, however, still had a job to do. He approached what appeared to be the main control console on the ship and looked for an entry port for an AI data crystal. Wullf, however, was amazed, shocked and in awe at the same time. A stranger, from a completely unknown and unaffiliated faction, was working freely on _his_ ship's command interface and he was apparently carrying some sort of device that he needed to insert into the interface, but he was unsuccessful as there was no proper port.

The Lieutenant, instead, decided to allow the AI to transfer remotely from the data crystal over to the command console and he moved the crystal closer and saw a bright blue ball transfer from his chip over to the console. Soon after, the entire cockpit lit up with life and a star map appeared in the middle of it. Two different star maps were compared and used to fully map out a route to Earth where the Marines and their civilians would be allowed to rest and then, this ship that they were on, inspected and the people aboard it peacefully questioned and then set free with the condition of getting the humans some help.

''There. Captain, can you get all of the people on my ship onboard yours?'' John turned to meet Captain Yularen's stare, who was still in a state of disbelief from the events, but regardless, he nodded in agreement and ran towards the civilian liner. He didn't want to let people get stranded in uninhabited space and then, possibly, get destroyed in another attack.

Within minutes, people were loading inside the ship through the only airlock while a fireteam was setting a self-destruct sequence on their liner and wiping out the navigation database so that the Covenant cannot hope to restore it, in case it survives a detonation. Upon their completion, they ran inside their new friends' ship and sealed the airlock. Though the people inside the diplomatic vessel were amazed that their detour turned into a rescue mission, the Jedi were satisfied. At least, they seemed satisfied. When numerous Marines had a conversation with them, they found out that the Jedi are something similar to an order of warrior monks that try to uphold peace, freedom and liberty across the galaxy, firstly through diplomacy and use violence only as a last resort.

Lieutenant Sandman, however, was spending his time in the cockpit, sitting in a corner and sighing about the losses he had seen in the past few days. They were weighing heavily upon him, and he had seen quite a lot of people die during his short career in the Marines. He took off his CH252 helmet and placed it in front of him as he looked into his own black goggles. John brought his helmet closer to his forehead and closed his eyes as its cold, Titanium surface touched his skin and he remembered the faces of some of the comrades he lost. Some were childhood friends and he couldn't help but shed a few tears for them. The stoic, indestructible wall of Titanium, as his subordinates sometimes called him, was now suffering over the loss of his friends and comrades. Out of one of his chest plate's pouches he pulled out a couple of ID tags that belonged to some of his friends. When he opened his eyes he looked over all of them, clearly seeing their names.

''I'm sorry I couldn't save you.'' He whispered to himself, however, Captain Yularen could hear him and he had walked up closer to the Lieutenant, but he kept his strict military stance. As a sign of a new friendship, he had extended his hand to help the Lieutenant get up on his feet. The young Lieutenant gladly accepted and, with Yularen's help, stood up on his feet as well as put his helmet back on and strapped it in.

''Are you prepared for the jump to lightspeed, Lieutenant?'' Yularen had asked and, as an answer, received a subtle nod in reply, to which he turned his attention back to the front of the ship, to the pilots, and ordered the jump to lightspeed. With a sudden burst of acceleration from nothing to many magnitudes past the light barrier, Lieutenant Sandman had suddenly began holding on to his stomach as it was an unusual sensation, one that he hasn't felt. The most likely cause was the vastly different means of faster-than-light transpotation. Mere minutes later, the ship had dropped out of faster-than-light speed and established an orbit around Earth where it was greeted by two dozen heavily armed warships that hadn't tried to attack it just yet.

''Unidentified starship, please identify yourself or you will be boarded or shot down.'' The voice had sounded very familiar to the Lieutenant, who was still struggling to recover from the sensation of sickness that the jump had triggered in him. It was Lord Terrence Hood's voice.

''It's definitely not one of ours, but it doesn't match any Covenant starship designations. It seems high-tech, so it definitely can't be a rebel ship. It's also letting out friendly biometric signatures.'' Another Admiral apparently had jumped into the conversation. This time, it was Admiral Harper. Sandman gathered his self and ran up to the command interface.

''Pilot, open a communication channel.''

Without hesitation, the pilot had obeyed the request and opened a channel in response to the one that arrived earlier and Lieutenant Sandman immediately responded.

''Home Fleet, this is Second Lieutenant John Sandman of the Fifty Sixth Marine Division, Epsilon Eridani Defense Fleet. Service number is two zero zero one five dash two five four seven nine dash Juliet Sierra.''

A long while had passed after the Lieutenant called his service number in high hopes that their ship won't get attacked and shot down, but the response was positive after it was confirmed in the Marine Corps database. Admiral Harper personally contacted him and had flown closer in his flagship - _UNSC_ _Inheritance,_ a heavily upgraded Marathon-class heavy cruiser.

''Harper to Lieutenant Sandman. Are you coming directly from Reach?''

''Negative, Admiral. We took a detour after we were chased by a Covenant Corvette in a civilian liner. The ship you're looking at is definitely not ours. We convinced the commander of this ship to haul us home, but it's a long story as to how they found us, or we found them.''

''Well, Lieutenant, you have a mighty fine report to write to Lord Hood then. You did survive the devastation at Reach, am I correct?''

''Yes, sir, and I have a lot to report.''

''Proceed to dock with the Cairo then. Lord Hood is already waiting.''

* * *

 **Ten hours later, ODA-142 ''Cairo'', Recreational Zone R-02.  
** After the Lieutenant had delivered his after action report on the events on the surface and around Reach, he was given some free time to spend at his will aboard the station. He stood in this recreational zone, simply observing the station and his surroundings in an attempt to relax from the events that had occured not so long ago. However, his rest had been cut short when Sergeant Storm approached him.

''She's lost forever, isn't she?'' Storm asked, in his mind thinking about Reach, but making Sandman think about his childhood friend Jessica.

''Yeah.'' Sandman's answer was short and he brought up a holo-still of them all three in a group with Jess in the middle, Storm to the left and Sandman to the right.

''I didn't mean Jessica. I meant Reach. But I guess the answer is the same for both.'' Storm placed a hand on Sandman's shoulder plate. However, Sandman didn't care about the lost anymore. He was deeper in thought about the HIGHCOM meeting where he gave his report. The meeting where most of the members of High Command were on a direct communication line with Lord Hood on Cairo.

''Do you know what they said to me? At the meeting?''

''What did they say?''

''They're transferring me.'' Storm was shocked. He had served with Sandman from the start of their careers, but suddenly Command wants to split the two best friends apart.

''What? Where?''

''To the Navy. They want to promote me to Captain and have me strike hard at a Covenant colony they found not so far off from Earth, but until that can happen, it may take weeks as they claim.'' John sighed as he looked down to the floor and then turned to meet his friend's stare.

''This is the last time we get to shake hands, Sergeant. They're shipping me off in two hours to the _UNSC Eye of Odin._ It's a Halberd-class destroyer. Fresh out of the shipyard.''

Storm removed the straps on his helmet that were around his chin and slowly took it off so as to be able to hold it in his left hand while he saluted to the Lieutenant.

''Good luck, sir.''

Sandman saluted back, but then turned his salute into a handshake.

''We'll see each other again. I'll be waiting for you in a bar, Storm.''

Storm nodded in response while Sandman turned around on his heel and proceeded to walk away towards the docking bay of the station where his first command was waiting for him.

* * *

 **Flashback, eight hours ago.  
** Lord Hood had been holding a private conversation with the Lieutenant regarding Sergeant Storm's new post. The Lieutenant didn't want his best friend to be stationed somewhere on a fleet that would get deployed somewhere, or on any ship that could get easily shot down. He was recommending Storm to be stationed in a garrison somewhere in North America, however, Hood had offered a compromise and offered the Lieutenant's best friend to be stationed on Cairo instead, as part of the Marine detachment responsible for security.

After a long debate that took many minutes, most likely over forty, the Lieutenant had finally agreed to the Admiral's offer and decided to leave Storm on Cairo station where he would do good protecting the Admiral and his crew instead of getting to relax on a planetary garrison.

Hood, however, passed the Lieutenant the Navy Captain's silver eagle and specifically told him that he's being promoted and moved to serve under his direct command and receiving command of a flotilla.

Shocked, the Lieutenant was at a loss for words, but, regardless of his personal feelings, he accepted the offer, albeit hesitantly and was allowed to leave the bridge to get to his new ship and meet the new crew.

When he marched out, the two Jedi that he had met previously entered the bridge to hold a conversation with the Admiral themselves. What they had agreed to remained a mystery.

* * *

 **September 8th, 2552, 1500 hours, UNSC Eye of Odin.  
** The new Captain of this ship had been taking a tour around it, getting to intimately know every little detail of his ship just so that he can perfectly understand its inner and outer workings as well as the locations of the pods, the ammo storages, the fuel tanks and so on.

His new understanding still needed to be cemented, but he had a basic idea of how the ship works, at least from his first tour. When he finally reached the bridge, he was greeted instantly by his subordinates that seemed eager to fight, but reminded Captain Sandman of freshmen that had just finished the Lunar Naval Academy. That reminded John about his own eagerness when he finally left Officer Candidate School as a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, but it also meant that these young ones were prone to extreme cases of pointless sacrifice and Sandman wanted to take it upon himself to teach them some discipline and display an iron will when combat arrives.

For the meantime, all he could do was wait. Wait until his flotilla is assembled from whatever the Home Fleet could spare. At current projections, it would be ready for combat by October 18th.

About two hours after he had settled into his new position, Sandman was contacted by Captain Wullf Yularen of the diplomatic vessel that he had encountered earlier.

''Ah, Captain Sandman. I congratulate you on your new position as Captain of a warship. Regretfully, I cannot celebrate this event with you, for I was ordered to return back to Republic space. Thanks to the star maps that your aritificial intelligence synchronized, we know that we are in the Unknown Regions. Our discovery of your government, your people and its struggles will be reported to the Galactic Senate in a few days' time. Until then, may we meet again some day soon. Good luck.''

Yularen then cut off the conversation and Sandman looked out the window where the diplomatic vessel was located at. Just a few seconds later, it accelerated and immediately left the system in the direction of what John had guessed to be the galactic core.

He lied back on his chair, trying to get used to its unusual comfort, and drowned in his own thoughts about what the future awaits, who exactly are the Jedi, where do they come from and why are there obviously two different factions of humans. This thought plagued him for a long time.

* * *

 **Well, it might feel a bit rushed, but I did my research accordingly and this would be exactly what Jedi would do. Now then, if you liked it then... well, patiently wait for the next chapter. Have a good day.**


End file.
